Friday, July 29, 2011

I wanted to share a few pictures, taken by Roger Fleenor, from the final dress rehearsal for the Just So Stories, which opens tonight at Rose Center - four shows in all, at 7pm Friday and Saturday, 2 pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Only those with jobs can get new jobs. If you have no job, employers see you as "unworthy" for a job. It is a recent nationwide trend and it is growing.

"The precise rationale for excluding the unemployed from consideration for job openings is unknown, but media reports suggest a couple of possibilities for this practice. One is that with so many applicants for every job opening, screening out the unemployed or the long-term unemployed is a convenient device for reducing the workload associated with the hiring process. In other words, eliminating unemployed candidates from consideration is expedient for the employer or staffing firm.

But expediency is not a proxy for candidates’ qualifications, and excluding the unemployed simply because they are not currently working not only unfairly forecloses job opportunities to many qualified applicants, it potentially undermines an employer’s ability to recruit and retain the best candidates.

The second rationale for the exclusionary practice is more troubling: Employers presume that workers who are currently employed are more likely to be good performers and have a stronger work ethic than those who are unemployed. Of course, this reasoning completely ignores the realities of the current labor market, in which millions have become unemployed through no fault of their own, and unemployment spells are unusually long because of larger economic trends that have forced employers and entire industries to dramatically reduce their workforces."

" 'Ah!' said the Cat, listening. 'That is a very foolish Dog.' And he went back through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail, and walking by his wild lone. "That's a line from "Just So Stories", which is entering dress rehearsals and tech challenges this week as opening night is on Friday July 29 at Rose Center. (Yes, I am shamelessly promoting a show I am directing, leave me alone.)

Digging into these tales by Rudyard Kipling (which offer highly dubious origins of animals wild and tame, O Best Beloved) has been stirring up my odd memories and experiences with Wild Things in the Wild Woods.

(That, and as I said, the jungle heatwave in this summer of 2011.)

So I watched a Nature documentary on PBS about "orphaned cheetahs". Sadly, the most modern iconic American reference to cheetahs is a corporate logo selling Cheetos. It's as if modern life has so caged or ignored wild animals that odd logos of corporate products are all that remain - but that is not the truth at all. We just live at a very, very far removed place from the Wild and the Past. (yeah, probably the Present too.)

And seeking out rare or previously unknown creatures holds little appeal to most of us.The Golden Snub-Nosed Monkey is either ignored or imperiled by people. (I'd say they prefer the ignoring rather than the imperiling.)